What It Takes To Change

This was our toast to the new year! Cascade Ice is just sparkling water. No calories, no sugar or anything artificial… Just refreshing without the junk. (and only $1 a bottle!) It rates an A- on Fooducate – probably only because there is no nutrition. Definitely worth it.

Happy New Year!!

Did you make any resolutions?

I’m not talking about empty goals… but rather, things you really set out to do – whole heartedly.

Did you write them down or commit them to your heart/mind?

If you spent 2012 in the health gutter, you are highly likely to welcome the new year with open arms. I, for one, could not be more glad to see 2012 come to an end… and the numbers 2-0-1-3 appear on the calendar.

But really, it’s just a different day – right?

What is it about the new year that gives people such high expectations of a fresh start?

I think, like most things – we like the idea of a clean slate, another chance, forgiveness… just in case things didn’t work before.

Well, many of you might have a word of inspiration for your year… mine is HOPE.

The great news is, there is truly HOPE in each new day of eternal value – in our Lord, Jesus Christ, and I’ve thankfully not lacked that… But my hope in the medical world being able to help me feel better is no longer where my hope abounds. I actually am filled with continued HOPE that I will feel well again. I do think I had given up hope in the past few months, and was beginning to settle for “this is now my new life…” and I’m probably going to need medicine for the rest of my life and still never feel well.

I will tell you, I never in a million years could have predicted my last year…and I’m thankful to the ends of the earth at how it’s gone. BUT, I’m also really thankful I went through it. I truly am.

Had I been slapped with an “easier” celiac diagnosis… I doubt I would have dug deeper for my kids, my husband and my extended family. I might have accepted my low thyroid feelings for depression and started on medicine, I didn’t need. I doubt we would have made the drastic health changes in our eating that we needed to. Sure, we were eating healthier before… but really we were only eating healthier, according to the world – and what the world TOLD us was healthier.

That made us feel smug, and comforted… but it obviously didn’t stop the damage that was occurring.

I walk down the grocery story through aisles of food we’ll never be eating again… and I think… “How is it, this is even considered food in this highly developed country, where science experiments in a box trumps common sense?” And and I wonder how it never occurred to me before? The bakery section of stores… seriously. We don’t even have a clue what we put into our bodies…

At least I didn’t. I was content with that.

I remember thinking people, “like me”… were a bit extremists in their eating and living. Maybe I assumed it was a choice… or a fad.

Let me tell you, given a choice, most people aren’t going to choose to eat how we eat… because the fad would wear off quickly. {more quickly than a half-hearted resolution!} The social aspects alone are not easy, but it’s getting better.

Oh, I know… the excuses abound… it’s expensive, it’s too hard, I don’t like change, I don’t want to change – give me my medicine instead. What if food WAS your medicine? What if you were poisoning yourself everyday, and it could have been avoided? Who would purposefully poison their children as well?

So, my husband and I have this little saying for people who are struggling, but still don’t want to listen, or change…

“I guess they’re not sick enough…”

We don’t say that to be prideful. We say it in the heartache of knowing how their bodies must be struggling, and the continued damage they’re putting on their systems – eating poorly, and taking medicines to mask the continued damage.

Once you know the Truth… it’s true. It sets your free – and you can’t look back. The more I’ve learned about how God designed my body to HEAL itself… and how I can be a part of that healing – the more “ALL IN” I am to looking at natural ways to cleanse, and heal – to give my body a chance, instead of offering more medicine to break it down.

But isn’t that the truth?We don’t change until we HAVE to, most of the time. We’re content until we realize things are as bad as they are… Until reality slaps us in the face!

It’s not about being a certain size, or being a perfect 10. God wants us to feed our bodies the fuel he designed, and He wants us to be able to perform at the level He designed for us to move at. Nothing less than His way.

No tricks, gimmicks, or fast fixes.

Just TRUTH. Healthy for Him.

Happy 2013. May God bless you with a healthy year of service and reflection of Him!

“Commit your way unto the Lord, and He will help you.”

Psalm 37:5

** Just a side note to say, I realize people need certain medicines or surgeries to be well – because their bodies are beyond the point of just eating well to be well. You TOO can make changes, and might be surprised. I’m simply asking you to take a true look at what you’ve done, or are doing to contribute to the problem. I was in shock to know the things that were still making me sick… and I’m sure I’ll find out more of what I was doing wrong!!